Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @09:08PM
from the who-is-this-linus-guy-and-what-does-he-know dept.

jbrodkin writes "Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds has scoffed at a new claim that Android violates the Linux license. Google's use of the Bionic Library does not result in a derivative work that has to be licensed under GPL, as some lawyers are claiming, Torvalds says. 'It seems totally bogus,' Torvalds said. 'We've always made it very clear that the kernel system call interfaces do not in any way result in a derived work as per the GPL.' While some claims against Android can be dismissed outright, Google and its partners still must fend off patent lawsuits filed by rivals Microsoft and Oracle."

If it is useless, why the feigned ignorance? It is possible to accept specific evidence that is contrary to a generalized belief. Just because, say for instance, one notices that some aspects of a religion help people, while others hurt, does not mean that their opinion on the overall beneficial or detrimental aspects has vacillated with each particular seemingly oppositional insight as to it's nature.

Or, do you see this as some kind of nerd herd with weak, wavering leadership because the supposed marchin

If you are actually curious as to it's source: It's a comic book character I created back when I was a kid. It is a characterization of my impression at that time of what my peers considered socially upstanding behavior based on the slogans and logos they liked (collected on clothing and gear). Basically, crude, stupid, obnoxious, dangerously reckless, but ultimately fun loving behavior. It was, essentially, a myopically distorted and exaggerated vision of what other people liked in each other, highligh

Just because the article is about opinion and legal maneuvering does not mean it is devoid of factual information. And frankly, I'm not going to breakdown the construct and spoon feed the individual pieces of factual information particularly to people that do not want to pay attention to it to begin with. But, for instance, it is a fact that those opinions and legal maneuvers exist, regardless of whether or not they end up being rational, true, or just.

Actually, if you want the *real* rationale, allowing interfaces to be copyrighted would be a violation of the purpose and intents of copyright. Interfaces are *functional*, not expressive. If anything should cover them it's patents, not copyrights.

I did say "oops my bad" in that discussion - more than once, even. I got my facts wrong initially, and was corrected by other posters who pointed out the copyright exception in COPYING file for kernel headers, and noted that in my own replies. You probably didn't read the threads as follow-up comments got posted. Specifically, here [slashdot.org] I corrected myself, noting that app developers definitely wouldn't be affected (and so that part of the story is FUD), but that Google still might be infringing. Then when there was a new story on the subject which dug out that Stallman's old comment where he explained that header file consisting of "structure definitions, typedefs, enumeration constants, macros with simple bodies" is not by itself copyrightable, I posted this comment [slashdot.org] where I plainly admitted that I was wrong before.

In any case, I don't see anything wrong with setting things right one more time, so here goes: I was wrong when I previously wrote in several Slashdot comments that Android Bionic headers could possibly constitute a derived work from GPL'd Linux kernel headers, and as such would have be licensed under GPL themselves. Consequently, I was also wrong when I wrote that Google was possibly infringing on kernel developers' copyright on those headers by stripping away the GPL copyright comment.

Well, at least Stallman (and FSF's lawyer) claims otherwise, and now also Linus claims otherwise, and I'm not a lawyer to judge their claims - especially as Linus has a direct stake in all this as a copyright holder of the code in question - so I'll trust their opinions, and assume that I was wrong until there's evidence to the contrary. I apologize if my comments mislead anyone.

Even more to the point, even if Google *is* violating the GPL in some esoteric way on this point, it's pretty immaterial if neither the FSF nor Linus think they are. As those are (as far as I know) the only two people/organizations with the standing to sue over it. This Florian Mueller guy seems like the Fox News of Linux blogs.

Even more to the point, even if Google *is* violating the GPL in some esoteric way on this point, it's pretty immaterial if neither the FSF nor Linus think they are. As those are (as far as I know) the only two people/organizations with the standing to sue over it.

FSF has no standing to sue over it with respect to Linux kernel, because they're not the copyright holders. But they can give legal advice.

On the other hand, Linus is not the only copyright holder for kernel code - all kernel contributors together are. That's why Linus doesn't voice merely his own personal opinion, but rather the collective one (which is otherwise captured in COPYING).

I mistakenly accused him of being a troll - like many people, he knew that the kernel was GPL v2, but not that it was a modified GPL with, among other things, exceptions for userland programs. We both apologized, and it's all good:-)

I still think slashdot should have diverted some of the effort they put into messing up the user interface into giving us a way to edit comments so as to avoid the avoidable flame wars.

More interesting, if you go to the original source [itworld.com], you get this quote from Linus:

I don't see what the whole brouhaha would be all about. Except if it's somebody politically motivated (or motivated by some need of attention).

If it's some desperate cry for attention by somebody, I just wish those people would release their own sex tapes or something, rather than drag the Linux kernel into their sordid world.

speaking of which - I just saw on BBC that Apple sued Amazon [bbc.co.uk] I wonder - do they actually produce anything these days or just outsource stuff (should be staff I guess) and hire lawyers? In any case I think more and more that the products of fruit company are for people with small penises - I mean one cannot explain all this hoo ha about their products in any other way or?

So, one more FUD refuted. Now Microsoft and Apple shills will have to look for something else.

Seriously. A lot of media pundits are nothing but paid writers employed by major companies - this is especially true for Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft seems to have been getting better slowly, but Apple is a whole different story.

While I wouldn't mod you down, I wouldn't mod you insightful. Maybe a bit trollish. I see that MS has a lawsuit going and they are being cagey about it, but has Apple attacked Google about Android? Hm...

>. A lot of media pundits are nothing but paid writers employed by major companies -

You should check out The Province http://www.theprovince.com/ [theprovince.com] when a new Apple toy is introduced or updated. Last iPad2 intro was on the front page as a main story for about 3-4 days. Yup more important when local and national news. Which plays into The Province pushing for viewers to read their site through an app. Yes you too can get your The Province website through an app.

His fantasy claims were debunked several times already, his blog posts (yes, it is a blog!) are poorly researched sensationalist junk and he still gets the attention of the press? Reminds of the SCO saga reporting:(

This might be the most interesting post this week. Will be exciting to see how this ends.
Anyway, can anyone tell me ONE (1) person, company, product, service, license or ANYTHING else which someone is able to make money on that are NOT having a long tail of lawsuits..?;-)
Kind regards,
Trond

I thought that this was the modern way of doing business. . Rather than competing by supplying a better product/service/price it is better to prevent competition by tying those that would be competing with you up in the courts.

While that's the sort of thing that people love to trot out on/., it's mostly misinformed.

For the most part, the people who make money out of lawsuits are the lawyers. As far as many other businesses are concerned, taking someone to court is a damage-limitation exercise. You don't do it to make money, you do it to recoup some of your losses and/or to make a public example of the fact that you are prepared to do so.

There's a bunch of reasons for this, but the biggest one is simple: While you've got peopl

To be pedantic, not necessarily. IANAL but there's a good chance that the contributor of a kernel patch submitted it as part of his/her job. So there's a slim chance that the (GPL'ed) copyright belongs to the Company not the contributor as a person. There's also the matter of copyright assignment, but I've read that Linus (or the Linux Foundation) isn't as strict about that, as, say the GNU Project.

I'll keep up the pedantry long enough to say that if someone is contributing something "as part of their job", it is the company doing the submitting via their employee as agent, so it's still the case the contributor owns the copyright. Now, if someone independently contributes something that they created for their employer, that's a different story with all sorts of variables.

It doesn't matter who has the copyright because Linus changed the license text to allow linking with the syscall interface back in the beginning, so everything is covered by that license until it is changed, and everyone submitting code does so knowingly that it will be released under that very license.

It is GPL2+this-very-extension. And it is GPL2 compatible since the extension doesn't restrict the freedoms that the GPL protects. If Linus had added some extensions with added restrictions, _then_ it would have been incompatible, but not when it removes restrictions.

It's similar to how LGPL is GPL compatible, in fact the Linux Kernel is very similar to the LGPL with the only difference that the (L) part is for the syscall interface only and not the rest of the kernel code.

In the original article (which took three links to get to), Linus says that there are parts of the kernel that are protected, only those areas intended for user-space are free to use without limitations. He further admits that he has not seen exactly what Google has done, but he seems confident that they would not be using those protected parts because they are only for the kernel and make no sense for user-space.

The implications is that if Google did in fact used those protected kernel-specific definition

It still doesn't matter if Google is including kernel-specific definitions. As long as they are interface definitions, they cannot be protected by copyright, as they are not creative works. They are simply statements of facts, like:

void snd_emu8000_ops_setup(emu8000_t *emu);

That's not copyrightable, and it's not useful in user-space. (It's from code not even compiled on my version of RHEL.) Putting a copyright notice on the file doesn't make factual information copyright; it indicates who holds the c

I'm guessing Microsoft are probably somewhat involved in the patents they generated. I could be wrong of course, but the typical reason for asserting patents is that you are the owner of them and you feel that someone else is infringing them

Let's see: SCO claimed that Linux contained code from the original UNIX, and sued IBM. What you're saying is that Linus should have gone up to the judge and said "Your honor, that's not true, I wrote this code". WTF do you think would happen? Do you really expect that the judge would say "Ah, OK, that settles it then" and dismiss the case?

Seriously. If Linus is the deity and keeper of every line of Linux code, why didn't he just cut the Gordian knot that was this lawsuit? He's the one person who could stand up to SCO in a code argument and refute every claim standing up. Yet he didn't. Why is that? I never understood why he just didn't come and put a quick end to this.

Are you serious? SCO sued IBM not Linus. Linus added his commentary [eweek.com] a few times [slashdot.org]. Also remember SCO avoided at all costs showing the source code to anyone. They delayed. Every time any code was leaked, it was immediately debunked. They deliberately refused to provide enough specifics even after multiple court orders to provide IBM with specificity. The judge threw out 2/3s of the claims because they refused to do so.

Even if Linus had the alleged source code in question and debunked every single line, do you really think SCO would have listened to him? SCO didn't even own the rights to Unix yet sued as if they did. The whole thing was a grab for money. It didn't matter to SCO that they even had a real case. They wanted IBM to pay them to go away. Except IBM is not one to back down.

His opinion on this matter is the opinion of one man. And his opinion's in no way privileged.
He's definitely not the sole copyright owner of Linux rights, so Linus is unable to make a statement
about the disposition of Google's activities that would be binding on all the copyright owners.

Last I checked Torvalds was a Software engineer/Hacker not a legal scholar or lawyer with tons of experience with the GPL and Intellectual property law.

You are of course technically correct (the best kind of correct) - from a legal perspective. But you can't so easily hand-wave away Torvalds' influence - especially over the kernel hackers who share copyright. What the man says on the subject carries a lot of weight.

His opinion on this matter is the opinion of one man. And his opinion's in no way privileged. He's definitely not the sole copyright owner of Linux rights, so Linus is unable to make a statement about the disposition of Google's activities that would be binding on all the copyright owners.

Linus did not say "Anything Google does is fine with all the copyright owners." He did very specifically address the issues with the Bionic library and the API calls. As a software engineer and the founder of Linux, he would know exactly what the entailed. Specifically in the summary above he clearly denotes that.

Because whether Google could be held in violation of the GPL or not is ultimately going to be up to the lawyers, and the question will only really even be raised if a copyright owner is raising a stink and intends to seek legal remedy.

Only no one who ever wrote any of the Linux code is claiming that Google did anything wrong. It's hard to have lawyers when there are no clients. Right now the case against Google is with Oracle. All these Linux matters are being brought up as FUD.

And regardless the license of the Linux kernel clearly allows linking with the syscall interface:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".

That is merely someone's statement to try to ease certain people's concerns.
It's not part of the license the Linux kernel is distributed under.
The kernel definitely contains GPL code where the devel

You do realize that I quoted the text from the Linux Kernel License file? So this is not simply a statement from Torvalds, this is part of the license the kernel is released under. Go check out/usr/src/linux/COPYING if you don't trust me.

Not to discount Linus, but I think RMS or FSF lawyers would be more qualified than Linus to speak on this particular area.

While I agree with you completely, as cited in TFA, RMS states the following:

I've talked with our lawyer about one specific issue that you raised: that of using simple material from header files. Someone recently made the claim that including a header file always makes a derivative work. That's not the FSF's view. Our view is that just using structure definitions, typedefs, enumeration constants, macros with simple bodies, etc., is NOT enough to make a derivative work. It would take a substantial amount of code (coming from inline functions or macros with substantial bodies) to do that.

Header files don't have much information. Without context as to how the program operates, it's just a compilation of meaningless values.

Besides, even if this were to be qualified as a derivative work, who in the kernel community would consider it significant enough for a lawsuit? In reality, this is just a non-issue brought up by a Microsoftie to spread FUD by attempting to convince consumers that Google is stealing code. If the co

His opinion on this matter is the opinion of one man. And his opinion's in no way privileged.
He's definitely not the sole copyright owner of Linux rights, so Linus is unable to make a statement
about the disposition of Google's activities that would be binding on all the copyright owners.

Like he said, he specifically chose those license terms for this purpose when he picked the license to begin with.

Not to discount Linus, but I think RMS or FSF lawyers would be more qualified than Linus to speak on this particular area.

RMS already did speak on this issue - after consulting an FSF lawyer - and said essentially the same thing as Linus has.

I do not mind lawyers but more and more I think if we do something painful to them them then not only we will have some fun but we do something for the society at large. Now I am ashamed of my view of course but who is guilty of that? I mean it is OK to fight for own rights but this "it is my word - you have to pay royalties" goes in the direction - "your honor the accused used the conditional branching statement with 'if' too and that is our invention' sort of attitude. The same category as having rights t

But it doesn't boil down to Linus or any one others opinion. The license text of the Linux Kernel has since v0.12 included this text:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".

Shouldn't Google take a whack at them with their own patents? I mean I thought that is how everyone preaches the system work. Everyone won't touch each other for fear of reprisal. I would say Microsoft has more to lose in the end too if Google attacks Windows. If it starts to look sketchy for them a lot of companies might jump ship to another platform in case Microsoft is force to rework their OS. Google doesn't rely nearly as much on Android for income. Same thing could be said with Oracle.

Well the thing is MS has been in the game a lot longer than Google, so they have a much larger patent portfolio. Also, I'd say that most of Google's patents have to do with search and web technologies, so Windows and Office would be safe, and thats MS's core business. Yeah Google could fuck the shit out of Bing, but does Bing make money anyway? They could cause some problems with MS's Cloud services, but probably not too much.

So its just a battle on the periphery. MS has its base (Windows and Office) and Go

Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft has turned incredibly aggressive (yes, even compared to the past) and has been playing a bit dirty with respect to phone stuff? First, an ex-Microsoft guy takes over at Nokia where he, surprise surprise, decides to implement a massive seachange in mobile strategy that includes dumping an existing effort in which millions had been invested and instead jumping into bed with Microsoft. Then some lawyer with close ties to Microsoft comes out with some preposterous claim

Microsoft has been at this game for years, to try and spread FUD about all open source software, including Linux. Unfortunately, they have gotten away with collecting lots of royalties from big companies because of it. I hope others won't let them continue to get away with this. Microsoft: You need to simply come out with a better product to compete, you don't need to resort to using the legal system to try and win back market share.